


Shopping Habits

by Mercury17



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Post Season 2, very brief mention of Claire, very brief mention of Elektra, very brief mention of Foggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 08:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11688327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercury17/pseuds/Mercury17
Summary: Matt Murdock still buys light-bulbs, even if he doesn't know why anymore.Just some brief post-S2 angst.





	Shopping Habits

Matt doesn't look ahead. He knows there is no-one ahead of him anymore. No one waiting for him.

He cradles the loneliness so tight it hurts him, because he knows this is part of his penance and that it should hurt. Matt doesn't buy new bed sheets. In the precarious checks and balances of his life he thinks maybe her death has bought him the right to sleep on his silk sheet a few more weeks. But he knows it's downhill from here; if he doesn't pull out of this nosedive he'll be making himself sleep on actual sandpaper before the year is out. 

He refuses to let himself heal, lives his life as an open wound. He still goes out, still fights the fight on the streets and rooftops of Hell's Kitchen, but calls himself a coward for it. He knows if he had any sort of courage he would stop and let himself just think about his life. He buys a new set of gloves for the Daredevil suit because he seems to be wearing down the old ones much quicker than he used to. The work stops that thinking, gives him a focus. He goes out every night - when he shouldn't, when just a few months ago he would have thought he couldn't.

That's the thing though: he doesn't look ahead. He doesn't look to see the consequences of not letting himself heal. There's no one to wonder why he can't lift his coffee cup with his left arm, no one to wonder why he's limping, why he's bruised and bleeding.

He knows he buys more shirts than he used to, because without having Foggy to check with anymore he's never 100% sure when they're still bloodstained. It's some concession to not raising suspicion. It almost makes him smile one day as he's hanging up new shirts with careful tags in his wardrobe: the thought that they never tell you that part of the vigilante lifestyle will be sorting your fresh laundry with your best friend.

He never buys milk now. He can drink coffee black, and he has no one else to make it for. It's one less thing in his fridge he has to worry about going bad.

He buys the same amount of first aid supplies. It's a standing online order, a certain number of bandages and antiseptic wipes and other necessities delivered every week. He knows it's exactly the same because he considered changing it. Once. After Claire left. If she wasn't helping him anymore he could no longer use her supplies and it would be taking him longer to heal.

He knew he should consider upping the order again, now he no longer has Foggy's supplies of plasters to mooch off. But he doesn't, not because he doesn't need to, but because he just doesn't take care as he used to. Maybe a cut or scrape that he didn't clean out properly is a bit hotter than normal as infection takes hold. Maybe he wakes from sleep to the sound of blood trickling from a cut on his back he couldn't reach to bandage. Maybe he's grabbed his kitchen counter for support more in the past few months than he ever has before, because everything is taking it's toll and sometimes the world slips away and he stumbles.

Matt doesn't look forward anymore. He doesn't want confirmation of how empty his future is. He knows they're not coming back. He sees bits of his future, glimpses here and there in his quiet, vulnerable moments. When he stands in his silent living room after a long night and shivers as the sweat and blood dries under the Daredevil suit maybe he sees it long and cold and drawn out before him. When the buzzing of the billboard across the street changes and he knows they've changed the ad it's playing maybe he realises he will have no one to describe it to him again.

He still buys light-bulbs. He doesn't notice this, it happens almost by accident. Like the thoughtless forgetful parts of the day - putting on shoes, turning on the shower - it slips through the cracks in his memory. Some unconscious part of him stores them carefully on a shelf against future need. He drums his new life into dull painful routine. He resolutely ignores the changes now, doesn't look forward, holds his loneliness close. He knows there is no one and nothing in his future. But Matt Murdock still buys light-bulbs, for that future he does not see.


End file.
